Free
by museicality
Summary: Written for SMACKDOWN 2011, Team Underpants. Evin has always been a free spirit. Prompts for this arc inspired by "Free" by Bryan Adams.
1. Get It Out

Title: Get It Out  
>Rating: PG-13<br>Word Count: 155  
>Pairing: Team Underpants<br>Round/Fight: 1/A  
>Summary: "Get It Out, Check It Out": (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Bryan Adams.)<p>

The sound of Sarge's bellowing split the morning air and sent birds flying, startled, from the Royal Forest.

"Trainees, MOUNT UP!"

Evin scrambled down from the fence, where he had been explaining why the Riders used their infamously temperamental mountain ponies as opposed to warhorses, like the Own, to a potential recruit.

"Sorry, gotta go!" he smiled apologetically.

The other boy grinned. "So I see. I'm Dom- Domitan- by the way."

Evin held out his hand. "Evin, Evin Larse. I'll look for you in the spring."

Sarge bellowed again. "We haven't got all day, my lambs!"

Evin dashed off, disappearing into the stream of Rider trainees running for their mounts.

Dom watched him go, drumming his fingers on the fence rail he had been leaning on. The Riders looked interesting enough.

Sarge appeared, striding after the trainees and causing the rafters to shake.

Dom winced. He wasn't sure if he could handle that bellow, though.


	2. On My Way

Title: On My Way  
>Rating: PG-13<br>Word Count: 146  
>Pairing: Team Underpants<br>Round/Fight: 1/A  
>Summary: "I'm on my way and I don't feel right": (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Bryan Adams.)<p>

Loverboy planted his hooves and threw his head up when the horn call sounded from the Own's office building. Evin patted his neck, craning his head to see blue uniforms appear out of all the buildings to their left. He dismounted in time to see Dom appear, leading his two mounts.

"First campaign?" Evin called, and Dom nodded. Evin noticed the other boy was slightly pale, and his knuckles gripped his mount's reins until they turned white.

"You okay?" Dom swallowed hard, but nodded again. Evin looked him up and down.

"Did you eat anything?"

"No," Dom croaked. "Didn't have time."

Evin rooted in the permanent saddle bags attached to Loverboy's saddle and produced a handful of jerky ad some dried fruit.

"Don't forget—no one told me my first ride, and I almost fainted, later on," he informed Dom as he handed the food over.


	3. I Gotta Get Me Back

Title: I Gotta Get Me Back  
>Rating: PG-13<br>Word Count: 376  
>Pairing: Team Underpants<br>Round/Fight: 1/A  
>Summary: "I gotta get me back, I can't be beat and that's a fact": (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Bryan Adams.)<p>

Evin stared at the ceiling; the walls were a simpering shade of pale blue that screamed relaxation and he just couldn't take it any more.

Dumb. This was just dumb, and he was an idiot. Riders weren't supposed to make dumb trainee mistakes after their first year. His shoulder was slowly burning up, and movement jarred it white hot.

The door to the infirmary opened, but instead of Duke Baird and an end to his pain, Evin saw Dom walk in, holding a rough bandage to his arm.

"What are you doing here?" they both asked at the same time, eyeing the other one.

Dom ruefully held up his arm. "Stray knife cut in training, nothing big."

Evin tried to sit up, and grimaced. "I think my shoulder's dislocated."

Dom winced.

"I know." Evin sighed, turning his gaze back to the ceiling. "I don't know if I'm cut out for this, after all."

Dom sat on the edge of the bed. "Well, that attitude's not going to get you anywhere," he observed pragmatically.

Evin's good hand gripped the sheet in frustration. "People find out I'm Player-bred, and I don't have to wait to hear what they think about that; their expressions say it all."

"Why are you paying attention to their opinions?"

Dom's simple questions broke the situation down and the next words ripped out of his throat.

"Maybe they all think that because they're right!"

Evin slumped and bit his lip, hard, to hold back what felt suspiciously like tears.

"I don't think they're right."

Evin refused to look at Dom. "I'm an idiot, I made a rookie mistake, I've been two years in the field, and one of those as a full Rider, and I still can't manage to-"

"Protect your Group? Lead a raid against a spidren den when your Leader was injured? Defend towns from the immortals appearing all across Tortall? Prove that you're not just a name, not just a word?" Dom ticked off the list on his fingers. "I think that you've done more than enough, and you're only in your second year."

Evin turned his head, so he could look Dom in the eye. "You really think so?"

"You're Evin Larse, a Queen's Rider; of course I do."


	4. I'll Find A Way

Title: I'll Find A Way

Rating: R

Word Count: 360

Pairing: Dom/Evin-Team Underpants

Round/Fight: 1/A

Summary: "It's okay, I'll find a way": This is the fallout, and Evin finds a way to handle it. (Part of the "Free" prompt cycle) Prompt lyrics belong to Bryan Adams.

The ground, afterwards, always looked like it had been ripped apart by the fury of the battle. Churned up and over-turned, clumps of grass sat on dark mud, torn away from the wounds scoured deep in the earth.

Evin's brow dripped sweat into his eyes, pasting his hair down over his forehead, nd he moved to push it back with his hand. As he brought it up, however, he flinched at the sight of the dark, drying rust color hiding under the dirt.

It wasn't that the sight of blood made him sick; but this blood had been shed so uselessly, over such an insubstantial reason. His gaze moved past his hand, and he realized that perhaps it was the blood of someone he knew.

Painful, white-hot beams of sunlight blinded him where he stood, and when he could uncross his eyes and see past the little black spots blinking in his vision, he recognized what had caused the light.

Out in the field, steel-feathered immortals had landed.

Evin's stomach churned as he realized what he was seeing, what he had been warned about, what was happening to the bodies of people who didn't deserve this, people he might have known, people who had woken up that morning, who had families and lives and—

He turned and ran from the battlefield as his stomach heaved. On the outskirts, even with his back to them, his head was full of images of the Stormwings and he retched violently, convulsing in disgust and anguish.

As much as he tried to keep quiet—he was a Rider, not a pansy—he feels the cool cloth on the back of his neck and knows that someone has found him.

When he was done, though his stomach remained tightly clenched, he wiped his mouth and turned. Dom was there, white-faced, with a canteen and a towel.

"I'm sorry," Evin croaked, throat raw.

Dom shook his head. "You're right, it is gross."

Evin, drinking from the canteen and splashing some over his face, refused to turn back to the field. Nothing could change that now.

"Let's go see if they need any help in the infirmary."


	5. You Ain't Gonna Take Me Down

Title: You Ain't Gonna Take Me Down  
>Rating: PG-13<br>Word Count: 183  
>Pairing: Team Underpants<br>Round/Fight: 1/A  
>Summary: "You Ain't Gonna Take Me Down": (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Bryan Adams)<p>

[i]Dear Evin-

It's getting worse out here where we're stationed. I know you can take care of yourself, but please watch out. These immortals (especially the spidrens) seem to be turning up everywhere where we are. Hopefully your tour will be peaceful, but don't let your guard down in bandit country.

I hope you and Group Askew make it back safe.

Dom[/i]

The note was in the pocket of his tunic when the bandits hit; swarming from the tree line to take them on the open road. He grabbed the horn from his saddle and sounded the alarm; somewhere on the other side of these bandits were Thayet's Dogs.

Metal on metal, shouting, and blurred figures ran through his head as he spun, chopping down one bandit.

"To me, Riders, to me!"

More figures in brown and red moved to flank him, and unified again, they functioned as one.

[i]I hope you and Group Askew make it back safe.[/i]

It's Evin and the Seventeenth, alone in the middle of bandit country and cut off from Thayet's Dogs, but like hell that means anything.


	6. Don't Judge a Thing

Title: Don't Judge a Thing

Rating: PG

Word Count: 194

Pairing: Team Underpants

Round/Fight: 1/A

Summary: "Don't judge a thing 'til you know what's inside it": Eventually, they learn. (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Bryan Adams.)

"I heard they keep him in out of pity."

"Yeah, something about an accident involving the Knight Commander."

"Isn't he that drunk?"

"Not anymore, not after the accident."

"The kid is just Player-spawn. They're flighty, filthy little liars who pinch pockets for a living."

"He'll never amount to anything useful; he's just cannon-fodder."

Evin wasn't oblivious to what was being said about him in the city; he heard it every time he went for a drink on his time off. Sometimes it got carried back to the Palace on the loose lips of someone who was a little more than tipsy.

The Riders, who had just as bad a rap with some of the skeptics, closed ranks behind him as he trudged home; they defended their own come hell or high water.

Years later, he would get word of how quickly the tunes had changed in the city. He still trudged home. He still ignored their hollow words.

He went to the infirmary to check on the health of the man whose life he had saved.

It was a slight of hand and a dancer's tumble that saved the life of Domitan of Masbolle.


	7. Don't Push Me I'll Fight It

Title: Don't Push Me I'll Fight It

Rating: PG

Word Count: 134

Pairing: Team Underpants

Round/Fight: 1/A

Summary: "Don't push me I'll fight it": Conversations at the bar are not always civil. (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Bryan Adams.)

It seems that the smaller the town is, the bigger the heads and the bolder the words.

"Oh, look, it be the King's soldiers and the Queen's soldiers; I wonder if'n they get along like the King and the Queen do."

Evin froze, halfway into his seat, hands braced against the arms of his chair.

"Don't, Larse," Domitan of Masbolle laid a hand on his arm, holding him back. "It's not worth it."

Around them, other men and women in the familiar blue and copper uniforms stirred restlessly.

"Lookie here, mates, I was right." The pompous fool motioned to Evin. "He's all riled up 'n his lil' friend here's gonna calm 'im down."

He's standing up and the chair is flying backwards, but Dom's fist gets there first and it turns into a blitz.


	8. Never Gonna Give In

Title: Never Gonna Give In

Rating: PG

Word Count: 189

Pairing: Team Underpants

Round/Fight: 1/A

Summary: "Never gonna give in, never gonna give it up,": Evin is determined, in the worst of times as well as the best of times. (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Bryan Adams.)

Outside there are piles: piles of splintered wood, piles of stone, piles of broken and battered weapons.

Piles of the dead.

He goes through, personally lifting and carrying and stacking and cleaning. He goes through, praying and blessing and burying.

When he gets inside, there are more piles: piles of reports, piles of dirty, stained gear, piles of bandages, used and un-used in heaps next to the infirmary.

Outside, it is calm. The worst is over; there is nothing more to be done.

Inside, he steels himself to go through, reading the reports and the impersonal numbers. He goes through, reading, sorting, and writing.

"Why do you do this?" Dom asks him when he spots Evin leaning against the wall near the door, eyes closed against the sounds of pain that inescapably sneak under the door into the hall.

He thinks of the people on cots on the other side of this thin wood. "I'm never going to give up on this. I'm never going to give in to thinking this is alright."

He doesn't realize that his whole face is ablaze with fierce loyalty when he looks up.


	9. If You Can't Catch a Wave

Title: If You Can't Catch A Wave

Rating: PG

Word Count: 307

Pairing: Team Underpants

Round/Fight: 1/A

Summary: "If you can't catch a wave, then you're never gonna ride it": Practice can make perfect, and advice reaches across divides. (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Bryan Adams.)

The first time Evin Larse had ever been up close to a Rider pony, he had been awestruck by the grace of the animal.

And then it nearly bit him, and they stared daggers at each other until Daine chased off the pony.

Given that first experience, he understood the reason behind the huge eyes and gaping mouths of the newest Own recruits as he passed them one morning when they were first picking their own mounts.

Later that evening, as he was leading his own pony back into the stables, he passed a paddock where a slight figure was chasing a horse in circles. As the horse trotted past him, Evin grabbed at its bridle and threw his weight down, forcing it to halt and stamp the ground with its hooves.

Of course, his pony took offense to the nearness of the larger mount, and snaked it's head over to snap at the horse.

"Sir?" the boy took up the reins, flushed and looked at Evin questioningly.

"It's all practice," Evin told him, backing his pony so the two wouldn't provoke each other.

"Yes, it's just… different from home." The boy scuffed the ground with his foot.

Evin leaned against his pony's side. "It's like one of my best friends always says, 'If you can't catch a wave then you're never gonna ride it'; she's one of the fisher folk down on the coast. But it's the same thing; you have to master the wave."

The boy's blue eyes had lost the beaten down look he had been wearing and now he looked hopefully at his mount. "Yeah."

Evin vaulted onto his pony's back in true Rider fashion and saluted the recruit. "Good luck!"

As he trotted off, he found himself hoping that that particular recruit stuck with the training and made it to the Own.


	10. You Can't Come Uninvited

Title: You Can't Come Uninvited

Rating: PG

Word Count: 183

Pairing: Team Underpants

Round/Fight: 1/A

Summary: "You can't come uninvited": He has his orders, even if he doesn't like them. (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Brian Adams.)

He had watched, safely surrounded by his fellow Riders, as the officers in the Own enforced the orders they had been handed.

He watched as the light left Dom's eyes and he heard the solid but flat tone of his voice. "Stand your ground."

He had listened for his own orders, had followed them to the best of his ability, and hadn't questioned them.

Until now.

The orders had come to him, the Group Leader, and Group Askew waited with baited breath as he read the writ.

They had heard of the terrible storms plaguing the coast. They had heard of the raiders pillaging everything in sight, had heard of the bands of ruffians crawling the coastal hills and stopping for no one.

In his sleep, Evin had heard them screaming, the people they couldn't help, the people they couldn't ride to, the people that knew help wasn't coming fast enough for them.

He scanned the rest of Group Askew's assignment, and looked up, one word on his lips.

"Now."

He wondered if Dom had ever been woken up by those silent screams.


	11. You Can't Take Me I'm Free

Title: You Can't Take Me—I'm Free

Rating: PG

Word Count: 273

Pairing: Team Underpants

Round/Fight: 1/A

Summary: "You can't take me…I'm free": He has his own, personal definition for freedom. (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Bryan Adams.)

He has hiked the entire height and breadth of Tortall and seen the land from the mountains to the forests, to the desert and beyond to the sea.

He has been in towns, villages, and cities; he has been in ports, tribes, and holds.

He has feasted with the rich and struggled with the poor; he has diced in the shadows and gambled in the Court.

The Riders have taken him places he hadn't ever dreamed before; the Riders have taken him places he'd only met in nightmares.

He remembers places lit only by the smoky, flickering orange glow of destruction, remembers places devastated by water alone, and remembers villages torn by war and human greed.

The Riders have given him everything and more—some things he wanted, some things he never knew not to want.

He sits on a cot in a crowded tent, the blue tunic Dom had been wearing pressed to the slash across his side, and thinks of these things.

There are good things and bad things; there are chains and there are keys. But even the danger to his life can't take away the comrades at his back, can't take away Dom covering him as they charge the front line, can't take away the fact that when you get down to it, this is as close to freedom as he can get and still have a purpose in his life.

"Don't bother giving that back," Dom says as he passes, sporting a clean white bandage of his own around his sword-hand, and Evin grins.

He has been there and back, but he wouldn't give it up for anything.


	12. Gotta Fight With All My Might

Title: Gotta Fight With All My Might

Rating: PG

Word Count: 212

Pairing: Team Underpants

Round/Fight: 1/A

Summary: "Gotta fight another night, gotta fight with all my might": The definition of "All". (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Bryan Adams.)

When he was a child, the definition of "all" was "as much as I can get away with". Used in context, "all" sounded like: "Mama, I ate [i]all[/i] my vegetables!" when really he had choked down half and then pushed everything else around the plate, into his napkin, and onto the floor under his chair.

When he turned fifteen, he joined the Riders, and as he handed in his recruitment documents to Sarge, Queen Thayet looked him in the eye and asked him, "Are you prepared to give your all?"

He said yes, but "all" turns out to be, "until I'm hungry, or hurt, or tired, or ill-tempered"… until the battle at Pirate's Swoop, and he opens his eyes for the first time.

When he's made it through his trainee year, and then the year after that, the definition of "all" becomes clearer. It's been days and weeks and no relent and no rest, but he's finally understanding. He's accepted what "all" means, even when it hurts because he cannot give "all" to anything or anyone else; not even someone like Dom, who knows and understands and hurts. He's accepted what "all" means, and he gives it, the way he told Thayet he would, and Buri watches him and thinks to herself.


	13. Where I'm Supposed to Be

Title: Where I'm Supposed to Be

Rating: PG

Word Count: 257

Pairing: Team Underpants

Round/Fight: 1/A

Summary: "What's this holding me—I'm not where I'm supposed to be": He hates being held back. (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Bryan Adams.)

He hears the call to arms. He hears the distant thunder of footfalls in the barracks and his mind traces the familiar steps- jump the third stair, it's a doozy-out to the supply buildings.

He hears the impatient thuds of hooves on packed dirt, and he hears the nickers of the few ponies left in the stables, watching their fellows leave. He thinks that he recognizes at least one of them as his own.

He hears the silence they leave behind in their wake; the silence overhead, the silence in the offices to either side of his, the silence even from the direction of the Mess Hall, which is a veritable explosion of sound most hours.

He doesn't move until he knows he won't see them disappearing down the road. He tells himself it's because he doesn't want to see them leave but his mind whispers that he doesn't want them to see him left behind.

When he does stand, he groans and grabs his desk (where they left him) and leaves the Riders' offices slowly, his limping, unsteady gate wearing him out. He leans heavily on the cane he has to use (the only compromise he's allowed himself) and curses the tight, deep scar twisting across his left thigh, cutting into his flesh and chaining him here, useless.

He fights this chain until he reaches the Own's practice courts, where he can hear the familiar sounds, smell the familiar smells, and see Dom. Dom, who dragged him off the battlefield.

Dom, who didn't leave him behind.


	14. All Wrong

Title: All Wrong

Rating: PG

Word Count: 108

Pairing: Team Underpants

Round/Fight: 1/A

Summary: "Why did it all go wrong—I want to know what's going on": It might be pretty, but it's all wrong. (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Bryan Adams.)

The morning after, the ground looks like a storm hit and ripped everything apart.

If only it were so innocent, but it's not. Mixed with all the litter and debris underfoot is the all-pervasive, multicolored goo.

Sometimes he thinks it's rising to meet him. Is it lifting up from the ground?

The colors are so deep, and pure, and intense.

His hand stops, inches above the ground, as his mind recalls phantom screams, and he remembers the hiss of the stuff on skin, remembers the shrieks of terrified pain, remembers the agony on Dom's face as he's carried into the infirmary because it's on his legs.

Evin recoils.


	15. I'm Getting Out

Title: I'm Getting Out

Rating: PG

Word Count: 232

Pairing: Team Underpants

Round/Fight: 1/A

Summary: "I'm getting out, so check it out": The past can come back when you least expect it. (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Bryan Adams.)

The first time his Rider group is called into a small town by the Own, at the end of his trainee year, Evin watches as his comrades' eyes widen involuntarily.

He can tell that none of them have seen anything like it before, and he wishes he could say the same.

There are the comfortable little town houses, lining the small cobblestoned streets, and the carefully tended flower-boxes in the windows.

They take a few turns off the main road and memory hits him.

The small, trundling carriages no longer sit tidily to one side of the road; broken, shattered pieces have been strewn like flower petals the width of the street, and colorful cloth has been trampled into mud.

A child's crying whimpers into the night, but her mother folds her up into her arms, looking with terrified eyes into the unknown beyond the box she sits on in front of what used to be her home.

Evin gulps, hard, when he realizes he recognizes her face.

"Hannika?" the word slips out, but he can't help it, and she recognizes him at once.

"Evin?"

And every eye in his Group is on him; every eye in the Own's squad is on him. Only Dom's face whitens in realization—this is one of his family—and Evin reaches out a hand to his cousin.

"Come on, let's get you out of here."


	16. Better Watch Out

Title: Better Watch Out

Rating: PG

Word Count: 339

Pairing: Team Underpants

Round/Fight: 1/A

Summary: "You're in my way, so you'd better watch out": Dom notices Evin in uniform and decides to give him a hint. (Part of "Free" prompt cycle; lyrics by Bryan Adams.)

Time changes everyone, and Evin realizes this before he even steps off of the Palace grounds on this particular evening.

"Where are you going?"

Evin spun on his heel to reply to the friendly yell from the wall above him.

"Just out—down the city, I suppose."

Dom leaned over the crenellated stone, grinning. "You might want to take off the uniform, then," he pointed out, and Evin blew him a raspberry.

"Someone thinks they're special ever since they got put on sentry duty…" Evin rolled his tunic with the distinctive crimson horse on it into a ball and stashed it behind a bush, leaving him to tuck his white shirt into his breeches again.

"Hey, aren't you worried that that will get stolen?"

Evin grinned up at Dom. "Not with your eagle eyes on duty tonight!"

By the time he had made it down to the King and Courier Inn, the night had already picked up full swing. No sooner than he had sat down along the wall than a voice straight out of his past greeted him.

"Well, if it isn't that Player-whelp."

Evin closed his eyes and counted to five, before a hand grabbed him by the shoulder and boosted him out of his chair.

"Your sister, she owes me money… and a little more," the crook-toothed leer belonging to the man grabbing him reeked of stale alcohol.

"Let go of me," Evin shook him off. "She owes you nothing."

"That's not what me 'n my boys think, boy… but perhaps, since you Player-rats are all so bendy, I'll take my earnings from yo—"

The next sound was that of the drunk's nose being broken, and his enraged cursing followed that.

"Whatcha been up to, Larse?" Dom called over the wall when Evin returned. Evin, looking up at Dom, earned a low whistle. "Bloody Mithros, Evin—did your face get trampled by your pony?"

"Naw—just settling some accounts on behalf of the Riders down in the city."

"Ah, always the exemplar soldier, Evin Larse."


End file.
